8 Quick Tips To Optimize Your Landing Page For Lead Generation

Landing pages are a vital part of your business. Existing outside of your normal website, the only way a user can get through to a landing page is via an external source, such as pay per click (PPC) advertising or email marketing. They can be used for lead generation, data collection, or even as a preamble to buying a product.

If you’re reading this, you likely have a landing page already. But perhaps it’s just not working out how you imagined, or maybe the leads are few and far between. We’re here to help.
We’ll outline our 8 quick tips to help you optimize your landing page for lead generation. You’ll be surprised how even simple changes can make a big difference to your conversion rate. So let’s get started.

Keep It Simple

This is your chance to tell your customer everything they need to know (and everything you want them to know): what they get when they sign up, who you are, what you offer and so on. But before you do, consider this famous quote:

“You know you’ve achieved perfection in design, not when you had nothing more to add, but when you had nothing more to take away”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The more content you have on a landing page, the more you distract from your value proposition, which is their reason to fill in the form. Keep the design simple and keep the content simple too.

Look at what you have now and see what you can strip out. This makes your offer easier to understand, boosting your lead generation.

Make Your Offer Clear

Your landing page should be about one thing and one thing only. It offers a clear benefit to the user, providing them with a compelling reason to fill in your form. Don’t cloud it with copy. Make it clear and concise.

Whether you’re offering a free ebook, consultation or a software trial, make sure that the customer can see at a glance what you’re offering and why it’s good for them.

Consider Your Channels

Many businesses invest in landing pages for lead generation but don’t realize they can utilize more than one.

Do you think people from your mailing list will have the same motivation to sign up as those from an industry-relevant LinkedIn group? Probably not. But often, you see the same messages no matter which channel they have entered from.

Consider using multiple landing pages to tailor your value proposition to the channel. Tweak the copy so it addresses each individual channel too, e.g. “LinkedIn members receive a special 10% discount”. The best part about this strategy is that this helps you to track the success of your campaign, quantifying the success of your lead generation strategies.

Simplify Your Forms

On a landing page, the form is right at the center of its success. If users don’t fill this in, then you receive no return on investment. It is imperative that you optimize your forms so that they are completed.

There are many common form mistakes that are well-documented for checkout processes but are still made on landing pages.

For example, forms are often too lengthy and require too many details. The objective of lead generation is to capture customer information for you to follow up on. The hard part is sealing that initial interaction.

Design your form to capture the absolute minimum you need to achieve a successful lead. This could be as simple as an email address, but as long as you have a point of contact, you’ve succeeded.

Be Social

Social cues are a great way to build trust with your potential leads. Include your accounts so people can have a good look at you before they commit to submitting a form. Maybe even consider including some testimonials or social mentions from your customers.

If prospective users can see that others have had a positive experience with you, they’re much more likely to engage.

Test, Test, Test

The best thing about landing pages is that you have a single page with a single objective. Your actual website may have a multitude of objectives, from building trust and introducing a brand to selling products. The only thing your landing page has to do is capture a lead.

This makes it easy to test your landing page by making quick, simple tweaks. Even changing a single word may impact your conversion rate.

One great way to start this process is to ‘split test’. In simple terms, you create two variants of your landing page; a control and a test. Your control is the one you started with and your test version is the one you change. Why not try with some of the tips we’ve listed below:
• Simplify your value proposition
• Take unnecessary fields out of your forms
• Redesign your page to make it simple
• Add social signals
• Create channel-specific pages

Don’t do everything all at once, otherwise, you won’t know which one is working. Try things one by one. See how each one affects the conversion rate compared to the control. Create campaigns in Google Analytics to track and compare, or use a tool such as Convert or ABTasty to split-test your pages with ease.

Consistency Is Key

One of the common mistakes companies make with landing pages is to use a completely different design from the ads or emails that the user clicked through from. By doing this, you confuse the user. Is it the same company? Who am I signing up to?

You need to establish trust with the user instantaneously. A quick and easy way to do this is to make sure that your design is consistent across the board.

While this is essential for every brand, it’s particularly important for smaller stores who don’t have the big reputation that bigger brands have. For example, browse the LA business listings and you’ll find plenty of small indie stores whose landing page branding and homepage branding are identical. This is important because it reinforces trust in your brand from your audience.

Unbounce calls this ‘conversion coupling’. The closer your ads and emails are to your landing page, the stronger the effect on your customers.

Don’t Be Afraid To Adapt

Another great thing about landing pages is that you’re not bound by the rules and structures of your main website. Changes can be made quickly.

If you find that adding social signals greatly increases your conversion rate, add this to your control version. Then you can test something else. Maybe tweak your headline. What effect does this have? If it’s positive, adapt this too.

To get the most out of your landing page, try following these tips. Ensure it’s visually appealing, simple and provides a clear benefit to the user. Compel them to sign up. And make that sign-up process as easy as possible. Then test it against a slightly different version. Never settle with a low conversion rate. There will always be something you can do to improve it. Test, adapt, repeat. Test, adapt, repeat. By doing this, you’re sure to start seeing improvements in lead generation.